


from, a maybe

by MostlyFandomTrash, nutellamuffin



Series: letters to a ghost [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Implied Relationships, Letters, Light Angst, Love Letters, Maybe - Freeform, Narnian Is Welsh In This One, bold of you to assume cas would sign any of his letters, ignoring canon (again), maybe aslan sent these after they died, they're just really gay and miss each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25796329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyFandomTrash/pseuds/MostlyFandomTrash, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutellamuffin/pseuds/nutellamuffin
Summary: contents of the unsent letters between caspian x and edmund pevensie, revealed postmortem.
Relationships: Caspian/Edmund Pevensie
Series: letters to a ghost [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2133522
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	1. have you forgotten what you have and what is yours?

**Author's Note:**

> letters from caspian written by nutellamuffin, letters from edmund written by MostlyFandomTrash.
> 
> chapter titles from the song "king" by lauren aquilina.

E,

I suppose you had a nice way of saying you were never coming back. There are a lot of things I didn't say that I could say here, if you were ever going to see this, if this letter was ever going to send. Perhaps it is a waste of ink. Or perhaps I am sitting here writing a letter to no one because I wish to stay in a world where I don't have to know that you're gone for just a little longer. Just until I run out of parchment.

I wonder. If I could send this, what would I say? Would I tell you about my day, or would these words remain the same? Would I still be longing for you if I could see your handwriting once more? Maybe that is the first secret I would have told you if you were still sitting here beside me. How I long for you. There are so many things I wish I would have said. There are so many things waiting on the tip of my tongue, if I could only tell you.

Your life in mine has extended to unsent letters. What a bittersweet tragedy that is. When we read each other poetry and laughed at the attempted meaning, I didn't think that would be foreshadowing.

In a million lifetimes, I would take you over a poem.

\- Waiting


	2. glass half empty, glass half full

Caspian,

Eustace looked at me strangely when I asked him for a journal to write this letter in. I suppose this is kind of strange, isn't it? Writing a letter that I'll never get to send; even if I were able to send this, I'm not one hundred percent sure that I would. 

Now that I've begun writing, I'm finding it difficult to figure out exactly what I would tell you if you were actually here, or if you were really going to receive this, but I'm really not sure. Maybe I'd tell you that I miss lying under the stars with you on Dragon Isle, that I miss going over maps with you in the King's Cabin, that I miss  you . By Aslan, do I miss you, Cas. It hurts, sometimes, how much I miss you, how much I miss Narnia and her endless magic. I think I might even miss that dreadfully cold castle you live in. 

If I could send this letter, I think that I would have to include in it how miserable it is back in London. I hate it here, and I know you would, too. It's loud here, and the people here are so much more strange than anyone we met on our Voyage. Even so, I do wish that you were here with me or that I was back in Narnia with you, if just so I could tell you all this in person instead of in a letter that will never be sent. 

I wish I could send it.

\- E.


	3. either way you won't be going thirsty

E,

I am on a boat in the middle of the sea and thinking of you. It is rocking so violently that I don't know if this letter will come out without ink splotches on it, and somehow I imagine you standing at my shoulder and laughing, tugging me away before you claim I break something. I wonder if I haunt your memory as much as you haunt mine.

Sometimes I will sit on the deck at night and watch the stars, and you aren't here but you could be, and I think of all the things that never were. Perhaps the waves will wash me away and I will drown until I fall from the sky in london. (I know. I always pretended I forgot where you came from. But I remember it. I remember every little thing you ever told me and how you would smile after you said them.)

Sometimes I think of counting the days until I wake up and you're somewhere on this boat, somewhere in that lifeless castle I'm supposed to call home. Maybe falling out of the hammock less than a foot away from me and I would think about if you would let me catch you. But it doesn't make much sense to count the days until forever, does it?

I am a lifetime away. And I wish I was closer. I wish I never took your laughter for granted, I wish I held onto you for just five minutes longer. These waters aren’t home to me anymore. The same sea that brought you to me, and the same sea that whisked you away. And Narnia in all of her magic decided I was not worthy of you.

\- Trying


	4. count your blessings and not your flaws

Cas,

Whenever I think about Narnia, I think about how we left the Old Age as grown adults and came back to Narnia as barely children, and you were nineteen the first time I ever saw you and you were twenty-two the last time I'd ever see you again and it haunts me to think that even when I'm writing these words and not two months has passed for me that it may have been a hundred or maybe even more years for you. Has it been a hundred years,  fy brenin ? A thousand? Am I writing words for a dead man?

Please don't be dead, Caspian. You being dead, even in a world away from mine, I think it would kill me as well.

Sometimes I think about how our boarders in our Narnia used to stretch from Archland to Dead Man's Pass in the mountains and all the way out to the Lone Islands. It's odd to think about how small she is now - I'm sure you'll change that. I know you will, actually. 

Rydych chi'n odidog, wyddoch chi.

\- E.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Rydych chi'n odidog, wyddoch chi" means "you're magnificent, you know."  
> "fy brenin" means "my king".


	5. you lost your mind in the sound

E,

I have begun to dream of you. Someone once told me that when a person you hold dear appears in your dreams, they are thinking of you. Are you? Somewhere across this universe, somewhere across the worlds? Since I am thinking of you, in dreams and in reality. But I suppose it doesn’t matter if I’m awake or asleep because they’re all dreams, aren’t they? When you smile in my subconscious and take me by the hand, when you point at the sky and tell me to look at the stars and think of what I would make the world if I had the power, I know it can only be a dream. All of that was hindered by everything I never said and now I can only wish it could be a reality in some life, in some other plain of existence. 

And I can feel you forgetting, slowly. I can feel you drifting away from me somehow even further than you already are and that scares me. I thought never coming back could be our forever but it wasn’t, and I am here, clutching a letter I will never send, and dreaming you were with me so that I might press the parchment into your hands instead.

Please, think of me.

\- Dreaming


	6. there's so much more, you can reclaim your crown

Fy Brenin,

Lucy keeps looking at me like I'm going insane, and maybe I am, because I've started taking this journal everywhere with me. Sometimes I take it out and just write down things I see that I think you would like, or something that reminded me of you, or just something nice. Maybe I am a little insane, Cas. What do you think?

That's obviously a hypothetical question, you can't answer. & when I go to sleep sometimes, I have dreams about you; about sitting under the stars, about sword fights, about the maps in the King's Cabin, about sailing the world. I dream about you and everything we did. I wish we could do all those things again ( oh, what I wouldn't give to see all those things again ) .  ~~ All I want to do is have the chance to kiss you and it's driving me insane that I'll never get that. ~~ Maybe Lucy was right; maybe I am going insane.

Caspian. Caspian, Caspian, Caspian, I miss you. I miss you now and I will surely miss you just as strongly as I do in this moment as I will in twenty years' time. I miss you. I love you, and I miss you. 

Maybe I should've mentioned that first part sooner.

I miss you. I love you. 

\- E.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Fy Brenin" means "my king".


	7. you're in control, rid of the monsters inside your head

E,

I remember the moment I realized you were going to leave me. We were walking along some sandy shore that I had seen a thousand times but never paid attention to, and I looked at your smile shining in the sunlight, and I thought, this can't last. And it didn’t, and I am waiting for that to hit me but it hasn’t. It hasn’t and I am still longing and I wish for it to stop. Perhaps when it would stop would be when you return to me. Don’t forget about me. Please, don’t forget about me. I don’t fear being forgotten but I fear letting go of you.

How do I erase my love for you? Because it’s there, it’s there so prominently in every day without you that my bones ache and my eyes grow tired of looking at things that aren’t you. Sometimes I would lie in the hammock to try to cling to a ghost of a touch that used to be there, but it would be too cold without you. (You were always so cold to the touch. Then why am I freezing without you?)

I hope the world is kind to you. I hope the wind holds you like I wish I could, I hope the rain leaves kisses across your skin like I should have, I hope the sunlight warms you like you did me in a hammock under the stars a thousand lifetimes ago.

Mi mayor secreto es que te amo.

\- Searching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Mi mayor secreto es que te amo" means "my biggest secret is that i love you".


	8. put all your faults to bed

Caspian,

I want to go back. I want to go back to Narnia and to Cair Paravel and to you; mostly to you. The more time I spend trying to remember what Narnia looked like, the less I can see clearly of it. Lucy told me that she can remember Aslan's face & the stone table, that she remembers you and she remembers fighting the Telmarines, but not much else and I think that scares me more than anything else.

I'm scared of forgetting Narnia. Maybe it's because I spent more than a few months there the first time around ( I spent twenty years there, in your so-called Golden Age, you know. Twenty years of growing up and being a King and the only thing I have to show for it is a crushing fear of the cold months. Twenty years of growing up and growing into a crown, only to get pushed back into a body I no longer called my own. Sometimes I wonder if Aslan really knows what he's doing. ) or maybe it's because I'm really just scared that I will forget you. I don't want to forget you, Caspian, not a single thing. I hope I don't forget you.

\- E.


	9. you can be king again

E,

Is it too late to start being honest? Because honestly, I used to think you were perfect. (That’s a lie. I still do, but I’m trying not to because it’s so much easier to miss someone you think is perfect.) Everyone has their own idea of perfection, I think. Mine just happens to be you. Perhaps that’s why you would never believe me.

I still ask myself, “How did I get so lucky?” when you weren’t even mine. I was lucky to even know you. Once upon a time. But that once held what we thought was forever and maybe forever could last if you held onto it tight enough, right?

I’m still holding onto it. (I shouldn’t be. But I am.)

That moment in the King’s Cabin. I said ‘I know’, but what I should have said was ‘I hope’. What were you going to say? It’s killing me, every possible answer rolling through my head. Maybe if I had let you speak, maybe if I hadn’t been so afraid of what we were admitting into the air between us. Maybe you would still be here.

I lost you in a maybe. I lost you the moment I believed in forever, even when you were right beside me still for a few weeks longer after that. I lost you far before you were ever gone, I lost you when I pretended I knew what you were going to say so that I didn’t have to face it, I lost you when I didn’t hold you even when we shared a hammock because I was afraid you’d push me away, I lost you when I had you right there in front of me and I ignored all the things I could have done. 

And I regret it more than anything. Please, forgive me. If I had one more chance, I would kiss you. There’s no more running from that secret. But you will never see this, and so perhaps it’s still a secret of its own.

\- Wishing


	10. you don't get what this is all about

Caspian,

Sometimes I try to imagine what life would be like if I had done what I wanted to at The End of The World ( I wanted to kiss you, not that that was an unusual urge for me, but I also wanted to ask to stay. I wanted to ask Aslan if we really had to go, go back to lives we didn't want, go back to a world where we were nothing more than school kids. Eustace doesn't say so, but I can see it in his eyes that he misses Narnia just as much as Lucy and I. He misses Reepicheep. ). 

I try to imagine what would've happened had I asked and had Aslan really let us stay, but all I can really see is your face when we walked through the water. Of everything in Narnia, I don't really think I'll ever get the image of you watching us walk away a second time from my mind. I'm sorry, Caspian. Sorry doesn't change the fact that maybe I should've asked to stay and maybe I should've just kissed you when I wanted to and maybe it would've been better to never have met you at all because then I wouldn't be longing for a place I'll never get to see again and a man I'll never really get over. But, still, I'm sorry. 

\- E.


	11. you're too wrapped up in your self-doubt

E,

I wish I knew how to tell you everything I didn’t say. But maybe I didn’t say them because I didn’t know how. Perhaps I didn’t even know what they were. (You had the tendency to make my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth whenever you were around. Is it easier to say it in a letter after you’re gone, or stumble through it when you’re right in front of me?)

There’s nothing to do about it now, anyway. And if I’m saying something I’ll never get to say, I might as well write it in a letter I’ll never get to send, no? Because I miss you. I like to pretend I don’t, and sometimes we long for things we truly don’t need but this is different. It’s different than anything else I’ve ever felt. (Did you look back, as the water whisked you away? Because I did.)

I used to watch the sunrise every day, you know. There was nowhere else to be. And I’d watch the water shimmer as if someone had laced it with magic- or maybe they had, and sunrise was the only time the barrier between us and them took a break. You were right there beside me for countless sunrises, I remember. (And sunsets. But seeing the world wake up is the slightest bit prettier than watching the sky set itself on fire.)

I’m writing this in a cold dark room where I cannot see the sunrise. You are not here, and the world seems to have died, and even though the sun still rises every morning I feel like I’m taking something away by watching it without you.

Perhaps I could persuade Aslan to let you come back, just for one sunrise.

\- Freezing


	12. you've got that young blood, set it free

Hanwylion,

I keep looking at the stars. I know that they are not the same stars that you look at when you look up into the sky -- that always amazed me, how the sky of this world and the sky of our world could be so different -- but it still comforts me to know that we can both look at them together if the time is right and the forces align. Some nights, Lucy will sit with me on the steps and look at the sky while we talk about Narnia, but most nights it is just me and the still street and the stars. I miss watching the stars with you. 

You told me once that the Professor Cornelius' astronomy lessons consisted of the legends of the Old Age, when we ruled, and I somehow wonder why I never asked you to tell me what he told you about us. Maybe I didn't want to hear the stories I'd lived once already, or maybe I just didn't want to hear about how disappointed you were with the way we had turned out to be in the end? Legends never live up to their stories, you know. Sorry if you're disappointed by the person I am or was. I tried to get better.

\- E.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hanwylion" means "beloved".


	13. you don't gain a single thing from misery

E,

I always wondered if you believed in fairytales. I did, of course. I believed in every fairytale I could read until I met you, and I realized that some fairytales are real. (Does that mean some wishes come true, too? Like in those fairytales? Because I’m wishing, and I have been wishing, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop longing for you to come back to me.)

Lucy told me once of your fairytales. First star on the right, straight on ‘till morning, or something along those lines? I have been looking at that star. Sometimes all the way until morning. It still doesn’t bring you here, or bring me there.

I’ve been taking day trips, far too many, I think. Out into the Lone Islands, sometimes out into the vastness of the water, looking for nothing. (That’s what I tell people. I’m waiting, I’m waiting to jump into the water and pull you out again, I’m waiting to find you.)

Sometimes, when I’m lying in bed and I’m staring at the ceiling, and I’m pondering if it would be any warmer in this lifeless castle with you beside me, I remember how we used to lay on the deck, just like this, and look at the stars. Narnia’s stars are not the same stars as London’s, (or England’s, perhaps, Lucy once tried to explain your geography to me,) but I still hope you remembered some of the things I told you.

If you can’t remember me, please remember the stars.

\- Hoping


	14. take it from me

Fy nghalon,

Some places make me bitter. They make me bitter that I am not where I am supposed to be ( with you, always, always, with you ) and am instead stuck here, on a train to one of those bitter places. The Professor's House is not really to blame for what it holds; memories, of a time long past, of your so-called Golden Age and one of the two places I have ever felt right. It is not the house itself that makes me bitter, it is the room with the Wardrobe and the coats. Sometimes I wish the back would fall away and I could get home.

The station made me feel some kind of bitter -- I am not sure whether to call it bitter or sweet; it made me think of you, after all. The first time we met, in the forest. It made me think about the Telmarines and the war and how you didn't kill your uncle. That only led me to think about the Voyage and the Dawn Treader and Lord Drinian and Reepicheep and all the others who sailed then. I miss it.

We're all on a train to the Professor's House now ( well, most of us; Susan refu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fy nghalon" means "My heart."
> 
> here ' s a fun game : try and guess why the letter cut off  
> >:D


End file.
